Pripyat Miner

The rise of the cryptocurrency sector attracted the attention of malware creators almost immediately and, as a result, a new malware threat type emerged. Called crypto-miners, these invasive, threatening tools are designed to take over the hardware resources of the breached device and utilize them towards the mining of a chosen cryptocurrency.

The Pripyat Miner threat follows this general behavior as well. It is delivered onto the targeted systems stealthily and will hijacker them to generate Monero (XMR) coins. At its core, the Pripyat Miner is heavily based on one of the more notorious crypto-miners known as XMRIG.

While the actions of a miner may not be considered as threatening as those related to ransomware or a RAT threat, having such an implant on your system is not without its risks. Depending on how subtle the attackers want to be, the crypto-miner could be designed to dynamically adjust the number of resources it takes up. This means that users may not even notice its presence, allowing the hackers to mine for the desired crypto-coin over a prolonged period.

However, other crypto-miners operate fast and dirty. They will hijack the CPU or GPU of the system completely, resulting in frequent slow-downs or freezes of the system. In some cases, the lack of available resources could even lead to critical system errors. In addition, by keeping the respective hardware parts utilized at a maximum capacity, the crypto-miner could cause the system to overheat and potentially damage its physical components.